


Simple Pleasures

by FoxRafer



Series: Starting Over [3]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-05
Updated: 2010-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxRafer/pseuds/FoxRafer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Three ficlets set in the <a href="http://foxyfics.livejournal.com/tag/starting%20over"><b>Starting Over</b></a> universe. All you need to know about the original series is that Viggo and Sean are two formerly homeless men who still struggle to keep a roof over their heads; it's set in 80s New York.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Simple Pleasures

**Author's Note:**

> Three ficlets set in the [**Starting Over**](http://foxyfics.livejournal.com/tag/starting%20over) universe. All you need to know about the original series is that Viggo and Sean are two formerly homeless men who still struggle to keep a roof over their heads; it's set in 80s New York.

Sean remembers when even the size of city crowds couldn't hide him. When people never failed to react to his presence, some recoiling, some pitying. He could never escape their eyes, their unspoken questions and recriminations. Sometimes at night he's back in the dirty, tattered layers of clothes, back in the gunsights of scarcity and fear, damp corners barely shielded from the wind.

He looks up from his feet as he descends the subway stairs and sees nothing. No looks of disgust, no quickly averted glances brimming with suspicion. He's faceless, anonymous, one of a million others all bracing themselves against the cold. He pulls the collar of his too-thin coat a little further up his neck and smiles. _Always celebrate the small things_ , he says to himself in his best Viggo impersonation. The quiet chuckle that escapes draws the first questioning look in his direction, which makes him laugh all the more.

# # #

Their room is never quiet, the windows too old and too thin to seal out the sounds of the street. Viggo lies awake in the dark practicing his Spanish as he listens to the shouted conversation outside. They speak too fast for him to keep up at times, but he thinks he gets the gist, tries to fill in the missing words as he goes.

The ceiling is a patchwork of cracks and he's tempted to paint it, continue the lines and fill in spaces, create a mural of their life together. But every time he threatens Sean reminds him of security deposits and landlords, and rather than feel stifled by practicality Viggo's happy for the balance, for the way they complement each other.

The men outside begin to argue, become harder to understand. Sean stirs beside him, almost torn from sleep from the commotion building outside. Viggo turns and rests his hand on Sean's shoulder, rubs slow circles against the skin until Sean settles back into slumber.

# # #

This month they're traveling through Italy. They marveled at the architecture in Naples and Rome before journeying down the eastern coast from Venice to Bari. They sailed across the Tyrrhenian Sea from Sicily to Sardinia, spent weeks exploring Bussana Vecchia feeling quite at home among the "squatters", the artists that reclaimed the ghost town and turned it from ruin.

Today they'd found a picture of a bicyclist making her way down a meandering dirt road surrounded by tall green grasses. It could have been taken in Iowa for all they knew, but it conjured images of a lazy afternoon in the Italian countryside, biking from village to village, getting odd jobs here and there to pay for food. When they got home it was added to their collection: pictures either torn from discarded magazines or copied from periodicals at the library, scraps of paper filled with notes about different destinations, random ideas for daily itineraries. All were displayed on the long wall by the front door, a collage of dreams and beautiful memories yet to be filled.

**Author's Note:**

> I discovered [**Bussana Vecchia**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussana_Vecchia,_Liguria) after finding these [**two**](http://www.flickr.com/photos/funadium/2268977581) [**pictures**](http://www.flickr.com/photos/funadium/2270348889/) on flickr. If you look at the pictures on [**this site**](http://bussanavecchia.free.fr/intro.htm) or just do an image search on google I think you'll appreciate even more why I fell in love with it.


End file.
